Assassin's Creed Shadows: Exchange Keys Locations & Interactive Tracking Guide

Exchange Keys in Assassin's Creed Shadows are the free, gameplay-only currency used in the Animus Hub's Exchange Store — bundles of 30 Keys hidden at natural locations across Japan and Awaji Island that provide a headstart on accumulating premium cosmetics, weapons, and mounts without spending real money.

All confirmed Exchange Key locations are included across our Assassin's Creed Shadows interactive maps.

What Exchange Keys Unlock: The Animus Exchange Store

Exchange Keys are spent inside the Animus Hub (accessible via the pause menu → Projects → Exchange). The store offers two rotation types:

• Daily Selection — cosmetic items, character outfits, and small customisations refreshing every 24 hours at 12:00 PM GMT.

• Weekly Selection — premium gear, weapons, exclusive weapon skins, and mounts rotating every Thursday. These are typically individual pieces from paid cosmetic sets, available free-to-play via Keys.

Critically: Exchange Keys cannot be purchased with real money. Ubisoft has confirmed this explicitly — Keys are earned exclusively through gameplay. The two sources are world pickups (this guide, 30 Keys per location) and completing Anomalies via the Projects feature in the Animus Hub.

Items in the Exchange Store cost a minimum of 1,300 Keys, making world pickups a meaningful supplement rather than the sole source.

Japan: Keys in the Natural World

Every Japan Exchange Key bundle sits outdoors in the natural landscape — never inside buildings, chests, or enemy camps. They appear as glowing floating rings at ground level or slightly elevated. Common placements:

• On rocks in and beside rivers (the most frequent placement)
• Under large trees in clearings by roads
• On shore edges near docks and bridges
• Floating on logs in swamps
• On top of waterfalls and peaks
• In front of small forest shrines
• Behind boulders on river islands
• By the pond under the Forsaken Pagoda Viewpoint

Eagle Vision reveals keys in dense foliage: "use your Eagle Vision to scan the trees to your left. Look for the faint white glow of the keys" — one confirmed Japan entry requires this step specifically to spot keys hidden high in a treeline.

Awaji Island: Parkour Access Required

Awaji Island's Exchange Key locations are significantly more demanding to reach than Japan's. Several require extended parkour sequences:

• Ship mast — scale the eastern mast all the way up, walk to the very end of the extended beam over the sea
• Wrecked ship trail — follow yellow flags, platform across rock cliffs, take a rope over to a larger cliff, climb to the very top
• Hollowed-out tree — find the roadside tree and crawl inside to retrieve keys
• Riverside boat navigation — take a docked boat west down the river; keys sit on the left bank just before the sea. The nearest boat is docked downriver from the bridge near the Kuji-kiri location
• Eastern Tenshu rooftop — climb the roof of the Eastern Tenshu at the very top
• Mountain summit — climb the mountain in full to reach the peak where keys are placed

Not to Be Confused With: Keys (the Progression Currency)

Exchange Keys are entirely separate from the Keys category also tracked on Map Master — the in-world progression keys used to open locked gates and restricted areas across Japan.

They share a name but have completely different functions: Exchange Keys go to the Animus Hub Exchange Store; Keys open specific locked locations in the game world.